It seems that every class I play, no matter the game, has at least one ‘unique’ spell that makes me want to play the class even more. It may not be the best ability, or even the one I use the most, but it’s one that I look forward to casting every single time it’s up.
This weekend my newly betrayed fury managed to pick up six of her master spell upgrades. The first one was a heal that I use constantly as a fury, ‘Back into the fray’ – it is a very fast casting direct heal, which increases the lower my target is in health. It’s one of those ‘class defining’ spells that I adore. The next master spell I managed to get was hibernation, which is another unique-to-the-fury heal. It is group wide, and I have put aa into it to trigger if anyone in the group goes below a certain amount of health. Fantastic spell that I constantly use.
The third is my ‘new favorite’ spell to use, and is pictured above. This spell was actually revamped with Sentinel’s Fate, it used to be something I’d rarely cast. Now it’s something I want to cast as often as possible, especially in raids. Yum.
What’s your favorite spell to cast? Is it something unique to your class or a basic spell that everyone gets? Why do you think we’re so drawn to these spells, and do they really make our characters unique?
Most of the spells I ‘enjoy’ the most happen to be heals and buffs, I just can’t help it. For the mystic, I’d have to say bolster is my ‘favorite’ spell to cast, and not just because it enlarges my target by a certain amount. Instant cast spells are high up there too, although I don’t have very many of them in EQ2.
I hope everyone had a great weekend, and that those who have today off are celebrating it with friends and family. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
@Sharon — Healing a group with a fury is actually not terribly difficult. As you’ve seen you’ve got “small heal, big heal, BITF, single HoT, Group HoT, Group Heal, and Hibernation. In fights where the tank keeps aggro you can generally get away with using the single HoT and patching with the small heal and BITF if he takes a damage spike. I find it easier to actually run both HoT’s since this keeps the tank up “better” without needing to patch heal so much, and has the added benefit of keeping the group topped off as well, if they ran into any AE’s or something.
On pulls you’ll want to put at least the single HoT on the tank, if not both, and have BITF ready for if the not-yet-debuffed mob gets a solid shot on him. Depending on the difficulty of the dungeon and how much damage the tank seems to be taking, I may cast Hibernation on the pull also, that way if the tank takes a huge spike the trigger AA can fire it off. And even if not, it doesn’t hurt to have it as a “just in case” thing either.
Just be sure not to fall in to the trap of “I can’t cast my AE heals on just the tank becuz that’s not mana efficient!” — It’s more efficient to have a live group than a dead one — be sure to use all the tools in your healing arsenal, including the AE heals on single targets if that’s what’s available for casting. Don’t be afraid to cast a “just in case” heal either — no one spell really costs *that* much power, and if it keeps your group up you’ll be glad you cast it, and if it wasn’t needed, you’ll have the power back soon enough anyway.
For your gear look for items with heal procs and lots of WIS. The “free heals” from the procs can make a huge difference. Heal crit is a huge thing to have in your AA’s and on your gear too, but you won’t start seeing tons of that until after level 80 (and then you can get it over 100%, actually. . . ).
And when in doubt, cast your group heal followed by your group HoT. This will save you a lot of grief.
If you have any questions or need something clarified, feel free to shoot me an email at jscamp2 at netzero dot net.
Thanks for the info, sounds like my Fury would have a great time :D ! Maybe I should think about returning to EQ2 soon. Sadly my old guild doesn’t play anymore and most of the people I knew quit EQ2.
Nice to see the stifle/root have been removed from Porcupine as it was it was almost useless, only ever cast when something caught fire in the house and you *really had to* go AFK for a while. :) I’ve not played much EQ2 lately so I’ve completely missed that. Thank you for the heads-up!
As for a favorite spell… This is hard. For the Fury it is Hibernation. With the 15% (?) hitpoint AA trigger it is very useful. For my Conjurer it has to be Aqueous Swarm. It’s not a very good spell. But I think the animation is hilarious, so I cast is as often I can.
As a newbie (68) fury who had one of each healing class at 80 in WoW and played a resto druid main, I only recently learned just how cool “Back in the Fray” and “Hibernation” are! I really need to spend a whole lot more time reading the tooltips on my spells, because frankly, I’m not entirely clear on what some of the spells do, so I tend to stick with the things that are familiar to me from WoW healing… big heal, little heal, HoT. I’m still trying to figure out which rez does what. Do all the icons need to look *that* similar?! Last time I rezzed someone, I used the one that turned them into a tree. I thought it was hilarious, but I’m not sure they appreciated it.
The one time I actually healed a group at 58, my monk tank died right at the end. Admittedly, she barreled in and just assumed I knew what I was doing. (We were killing the djinn guy in that place with the book adds.) I really need more practice healing, but it’s hard to find a group willing to put up with my experimentation. (“Hey, do you guys mind if I learn how to heal while we do this?” hehe). I want to be a healy fury rather than a wannabe-wizard fury (and I recently respecced my AA along those lines), but I’m intimidated by how everyone else seems to know what they’re doing already! And I don’t have a very thick skin.
Now I’m off to read up on what porcupine actually does… :)
@Olphas — all the “specialty” heal spells that stunned, stifled, or rooted the casters have had their negative aspects removed. It’s LOVELY. Also, all group cures now cure all states, not just 2 of the 4.
For me, I’ve always been surprised at how well the druids can heal, especially in AE. I’ve always laughed when people said furies were “bad healers” because I’ve seen both from playing it and from grouping with enough of them over time to know it’s most definitely the player, not the class that makes all the difference. Too many furies play as “wizard wannabes that can heal” and not as “healers who can nuke” and that’s the source of it all.
As far as favorite spells go. . . . Huh. I can’t really say I have one on my coercer. If I had to pick it’d probably be Possess Essence, really. Makes soloing really easy, adds dps and sometimes buffs in groups, and it really freaks the tank out to see the thing he’s fighting also standing next to him fighting the mob he’s on. For my SK, it’s hands down Grave Sacrament. True AE, high damage, no target limit!!!!!!! Snaps hate to me like nobody’s business with its positional proc as well. A most excellent tanking spell. Shame about the long recast, but it’s so powerful that it has to be limited somehow.
For my other toons…. can’t really think of anything that’s “favorite.” They’re just tools to be used in playing the game to me, for the most part.
@Ophas – yes, they did remove the stifle / stand still portion of porcupine, and now it has a power over time for usage, but that’s the only down side. Druids are (I would say, personally) the best healers at the moment with the release of Sentinel’s Fate. My warden (before she betrayed back to fury) had no issues healing the most difficult instances with very poor gear. My mystic does well – but they still cast incredibly slow compared to all other healers, which really hurts in Sentinel’s Fate. My mystic has been my ‘main’ for a little while now and is very well geared with max aa, but the druid only has 155aa and was doing fantastic with expert spells and Sentinel’s Fate tier 1 gear. I’m really excited about gearing her up and getting more aa to see exactly how well they can do now.
My main was a fury, specialized on healing. I absolutely loved Back into the fray and hibernation, especially in combination with the talent that made its heal go off early when it was necessary. Both can be real life savers if you know, when and how to use them. Many furies I met didn’t use either one of them. I don’t really know why.
Since I haven’t played since before Sentinel’s Fate went live I don’t know about Porcupine. I never really used it because the caster could not move while the spell was active. Did they remove that?
And while we’re at it: Did SOE really make druid healers more effective like they said they would? I sure hope so. I liked healing with my mystic, but I really love the direct healing style the druids have. I thought that in Shadow Odyssey it was really, really hard for a fury to compete with the other priests. And since TSO-Instances often required a LOT of damage, many groups did not want more than one healer. And for a fury this could be a real nightmare while my mystique could do it much more efficient with equipment clearly inferior to that of the fury …